A Tuneup For Carnegie Hall America's Showplace Is Returning To Glory

July 8, 1986|By Michael Kimmelman KNT News Service

NEW YORK — The bulldozer plowed straight out through the entrance of Carnegie Hall, carrying remains from the grand auditorium's demolished interior and dropping them unceremoniously into a Dumpster on 57th Street.

Inside, amid clouds of dust and crumbling plaster, a man stood in one of the hall's dress-circle boxes with a crowbar, calmly ripping up the elegant, red velvet rail-covering.

Carnegie Hall has long been considered one of the world's premiere performing spaces, a place known for its remarkable acoustics and great prestige. It has been a goal for countless aspiring young musicians, and even a source of affectionate humor. (The standard joke: ''How do I get to Carnegie Hall?'' asks a tourist. ''Practice'' is the answer.) Virtually every major artist, from Mahler, Toscanini and Stokowski to Bernstein, Horowitz and Rubinstein, has made musical history on its grand and beautiful stage.

But these days, Carnegie Hall looks more like the Semper Opera House in Dresden after World War II. Its lobby is destroyed, its stage and 2,800 seats gone, its ceiling and walls and floors in disrepair. A sign remains above a doorway on the family-circle level, directing visitors downstairs to the dress circle and parquet, but one step through the door and it's a quick trip straight to the basement. Where the grand, mirrored staircase had once been there is nothing now but an air shaft.

A month ago, the 95-year-old New York institution shut down for a projected seven-month renovation and restoration. When it reopens (just before Christmas, if all goes as planned), it is to have an expanded, two-level lobby; increased backstage space; air conditioning; new elevators and stairways; a new stage and backstage facilities for the 283-seat Carnegie Recital Hall next door; a new floor for the main auditorium and its stage; and a reconstructed acoustic shell for the stage. There also will be new seats, a new marquee and a general spit-and-polish air inside and out.

The idea is to restore the hall to its original glory, removing all later additions and improving problem areas. Inadequate room backstage, for instance, has meant that equipment (pianos, stage sets and the like) has had to go through public spaces in order to reach the stage. And the lobby, staircases and elevators have not been able to handle the volume of traffic through the hall.

All this is to be changed in a plan by the New York architectural firm James Stewart Polshek & Partners. The effort is the product of a $50 million fund-raising drive, $40 million of which is intended for the renovation, $7 million for the hall's endowment and the remainder for expanded artistic programs sponsored by Carnegie. Most of the money has been pledged, but several million remains to be raised, according to Jennifer Wada, a Carnegie representative.

The drive was announced a year ago, on the 25th anniversary of the rescue of the building from demolition. In 1957, Robert Simon Jr., who had purchased the building from the Carnegie estate in 1935, sold the property to a developer who planned to destroy the hall and erect a 44-story high-rise building sheathed in a checkerboard pattern of bright red porcelain panels.

This was such sad news for music lovers that a drive, under the leadership of violinist Isaac Stern, was launched to prevent the demolition. With the help of several politicians and many prominent artists, the lobbyists persuaded the city to save the hall by purchasing it, which it did on April 28, 1960. Thereafter, Carnegie was to be run as a non-profit corporation and the hall was to be leased by the city. In 1964 it was named a National Historic Landmark by the Interior Department.

During the next few years, the hall and its attendant offices and smaller auditoriums (Carnegie Recital Hall and Carnegie Cinema) were kept in serviceable condition, but as time went by, the need for extensive repairs became increasingly apparent. The current renovation, its planners say, is long overdue.